The present invention relates to an aligning device and method for feeding products into an automatic packaging machine.
In the field of publishing products, packaging machines currently receive a range of these publishing products such as envelopes, newspapers, magazines, books, with or without included gadgets, and they place said products in position, neatly wrapped in plastic film or paper.
In order to perform this operation, said products, such as a newspaper including relative inserts or additional gadgets, must be fed correctly aligned and stacked with suitable sheet placers or similar devices. This requirement is necessary to facilitate the following wrapping action and to obtain correct wrapping results, where the products in the package are neatly stacked to occupy the least possible space.
Naturally it must be taken into consideration that all wrapping action is performed automatically. In fact, the various products listed above stacked between suitable sheet placers or similar devices, are sent forward towards a conveyor that transfers them to the following area for wrapping in plastic film or paper.
The conveyor system is generally composed of a pusher conveyor whereon the pushers are arranged at a certain distance one behind the other with a step that can be set in advance. The pushers move forward until they are in contact with the product or stack of products that are fed gradually until they make up the contents of the final package.
The sheet placers or similar devices that are especially selected for said feeding action are not able to place the fed products in perfectly aligned stacks, partly because of the conveyor motion, and partly because the surface and materials of the products themselves often lead to sliding when in contact with each other, causing them to become misaligned.
This problem is increased when the film is transparent, or when the products in the stack have very different sizes. Moreover, misaligned stacks also require larger quantities of packaging materials in order to contain all the products.